


blossoming even as we gaze

by yugto



Category: Suikoden Tierkreis
Genre: Canon Universe, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-16 15:49:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4631061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yugto/pseuds/yugto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At twenty-two, Sisuca started to understand all those times her neighbors complained about their children growing up too fast. Granted, her neighbors’ children never decided to start armies or run across the continent or challenge the Order of the One True Way, but she thought the feeling was kind of the same. Letting go of your children was tough, whether you were a fifty-year-old father watching his children move out of the house, a thirty-year-old dropping her son off at school for the first time, or a twenty-two-year-old watching her fifteen-year-old sister and her best friends run out the door to fight enemy armies for the third time this season.</p>
            </blockquote>





	blossoming even as we gaze

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Suzume](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzume/gifts).



> Written for Suzume, who requested something about Sisuca and her familial relationships!
> 
> Title taken from [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp8GEytgdZA).

At twenty-two, Sisuca started to understand all those times her neighbors complained about their children growing up too fast. Granted, her neighbors’ children never decided to start armies or run across the continent or challenge the Order of the One True Way, but she thought the feeling was kind of the same. Letting go of your children was tough, whether you were a fifty-year-old father watching his children move out of the house, a thirty-year-old dropping her son off at school for the first time, or a twenty-two-year-old watching her fifteen-year-old sister and her best friends run out the door to fight enemy armies for the third time this season.

(And, honestly, could the Order give it a rest? It was only the third day of bud season.)

Her father was still befuddled by the entire deal; Sieg had had him touch the Chronicle they’d found way back when they first found it, but it hadn’t done anything for him, not like it had for Sisuca. Dad wasn’t a Starbearer, which meant he got to stay home and continue governing the village while Sisuca moved to the castle, worried herself sick over her babies whenever they went out, and wrote letters home every week to report to her dad that yes, Marica and Sieg and Jale and Liu were somehow still alive, against all odds.

* * *

At the ages of ten and eight, Dirk and Sisuca formed a friendship built off of their mutual job: looking after Citro Village’s three tiniest hellions. Even at the tender ages of ten months, one year, and one year and two months, the three of them were both inseparable and incorrigible. Once they started crawling, they took advantage of every opportunity to crawl out the nearest door, into the closest pile of just-folded laundry, or into anywhere they shouldn’t be.

Dirk and Sisuca’s teamwork grew better as they got older; with age came increased speed and agility, giving them the ability to snatch up Sieg or Jale or Marica before they got into trouble, and not after. (Of course, the kids managed to get into trouble, anyway; both Sisuca and Dirk had school during the day, and chores to do at home, and couldn’t possibly keep an eye on them every second.) Still, with their teamwork came a good friendship, and eventually, the kids came to see Dirk as a sort of older brother figure. When Liu came to Citro, Dirk took him under his wing, too, and in almost no time at all, Liu was like part of the family.

Alongside Sisuca, Dirk had spent the majority of his life taking care of the Citro kids; all that being said, it came as a surprise to Sieg and his friends when Dirk decided not to stay at the castle, electing instead to go home and continue protecting the village.

On the one hand, Dirk’s idea made sense. Citro Village was now missing three members of its Defense Corps—four, if you counted Liu, but he’d always been there more as moral support than anything else—and the Defense Corps had never been large in the first place. Losing four members, even if they were just teenagers, was still equivalent to losing around ten percent of the Defense Corps’ force. On the other hand, though, Dirk would really have been of more use at the castle. Every Order soldier with orders to attack their village would have to pass through Flesaria Forest, while the greatest threat to Citro that could arrive from the south was a particularly vicious herd of Laggarts.

But they let him go, saw him off with a wave and a smile, and watched as his retreating back disappeared into the forests to the south of the castle.

Sisuca moved into the castle a few days after Dirk left, surprised that she hadn’t seen him as she walked up to the castle. She had thought that she’d pass him sometime over the course of the three-day journey from Citro Village to Ratselhaft Castle, but she hadn’t seen him at all. She assumed he had taken an alternate route, and didn’t think too much about it for a little while.

Once she had finished unpacking her things, she sat down and wrote a letter to her father, adding in a postscript _How is Dirk? Did he make it home yet? I didn’t see him at all on the way up here._ A week later, she received a puzzled reply from her father. _I thought he was at the castle with you_ , the letter read. _Dirk hasn’t been home since he left to help fight off the Order troops. He’s been gone for the last season or so, I’d say._ The rest of the letter updated her on the state of affairs in Citro and wished them well, but Sisuca’s eyes kept sliding back to the words _He’s been gone for the last season or so_. She stared at the letter in confusion for a moment longer before putting it down and heading off to find Sieg.

“Have you heard from Dirk recently?” she asked, trying to sound nonchalant and failing miserably.

Sieg frowned, picking up on Sisuca’s unease. “Last time I saw him was when he left. Why?”

“Dad says he hasn’t been home for a season.”

“Huh. That’s weird… Dirk wouldn’t just disappear without any reason, though. He’s strong enough to beat any monster in these woods! I bet he’ll show up eventually,” said Sieg, with an air of confidence Sisuca did her best to replicate. And true to Sieg’s word, Dirk showed up the next day. Granted, he revealed he was working with the Order of the One True Way, lit the Chronicles on fire, jumped out a window, and disappeared into the woods once again after Sieg tried to fight him, but at least they had a general idea of where he was now.

All right, so Sisuca was fishing for a silver lining, and she knew it. But really, what else could she say to console her four downhearted children? “I’m sure he’s doing it for your sake” was quite a stretch, considering that Dirk had fallen in with the only group that they had any real quarrel with, and was spouting off their ideology to boot. No, Sisuca didn’t understand Dirk’s actions at all, but he was her babies’ surrogate older brother and one of her best friends, and all she could do was hope he came back to them eventually. 

* * *

After Dirk disappeared with the Order archivists, life went on in his absence. While Sieg ran across the continent making new allies, Sisuca got to know everyone in the castle. She formed a particular friendship with Nemne once she found out that the Porpos-kin was also fond of singing, and the two of them spent a lot of time on the roof, teaching each other songs. She picked up two of Nemne’s favorites with ease—one little ditty about a Porpos who crossed the sea once every year on his birthday, and an upbeat hymn to Ninulneda—and in return she taught Nemne her favorite songs, one lullaby her mother had always sung to her as a child, and one about a Wanderer who traveled all over the continent and collected things to bring back to their lover.

Although there were plenty of activities around the castle to occupy her time, she still found herself worrying about her babies—were they doing all right out there? What kind of trouble were they getting themselves into, days and days of travel away from her?

In their absence, she documented their adventures as faithfully as she could, putting together accounts of the Viele Wege Company’s evolution from stories she heard in the tavern from people who had just come back from missions. Although she wasn’t there to see any of it, it seemed that the Company was getting along just fine, and becoming stronger than ever.

* * *

When the Viele Wege Company officially severed ties with the Magedom of Janam, it explained why there were so many newcomers underfoot. However, it didn’t explain why the castle magically expanded itself to more than accommodate all its new occupants, adding a large kitchen and dining room, more bedrooms and halls, fields out in the back, and a basement with a mysterious stone tablet accompanied by an equally mysterious woman.

The mysterious woman, who introduced herself simply as Zenoa, had one request that seemed simple enough: clean the Tablet of the Promise. But as weeks went by and Sieg brought more and more new recruits back, Zenoa stubbornly maintained that the tablet just wasn’t clean enough.

“I don’t understand,” Sieg complained as they walked through the front hall, footsteps echoing on the stone floors. “I’ve sent out, like, five teams to try cleanin’ that stupid tablet of Zenoa’s, and not a single one of them has been able to clean it.”

“ _Shh_ , she might hear you,” Marica hissed, looking from side to side as if expecting Zenoa to sweep out from around a corner and start lecturing them about the importance of being able to see her own reflection in the tablet. When no mysterious bald women approached their group, she sighed in relief and added, “Anyway, you haven’t sent everyone yet. Have you tried my sister?”

Sieg paused, tilted his head to the side in thought, then exclaimed, “You’re right, I didn’t ask her yet! Do ya think she’d do it?”

“You haven’t taken her anywhere all season,” Jale pointed out. “She’s just been sitting around the castle ever since she joined us. I think she’d be glad to have something to do.”

* * *

Sisuca was all too happy to clean the Tablet of the Promise, and brushed away Sieg’s suggestions of possible teammates, insisting, “I had to clean up after all three of you when you were babies, remember? Cleaning this tablet will be easy work for Mama! I’ll see you later!”

She disappeared down the stairs with an armful of towels and a bucket of polish, humming a jaunty Citro tune, as Sieg yelled after her, “How many times do I have to tell ya? You ain’t my mom!!”

Sisuca emerged almost a week later, tired yet triumphant, with dirty towels slung over one arm and an empty bucket in her other hand, and disappeared into the bathhouse straightaway. Sieg checked in with Moana to find that Zenoa had left a note containing an actual compliment, paired with a generous reward comprised of ten thousand potch and, to his bemusement, a broom. He toted both to the tavern, where Marica, Jale, and Liu sat in a corner, picking thin, crunchy breadsticks out of a basket on the table.

“The pay was great, but what are we supposed to do with this broom?” Liu asked, ever the practical one. “We’re an army, not a cleaning service.”

Jale shrugged and offered, “Well, you could hit someone over the head with it.”

“Have you seen the size of the Auster Folk?” demanded Marica. “That broom would snap over their heads like a twig!” She took a vicious bite of her own breadstick for emphasis, swallowed, then continued, “Even a normal human would only be dazed for a minute or two. There’s got to be a different way to use this.”

“Well, I guess you could…” Sieg’s eyes glinted with mischief, and just as Marica opened her mouth to say something along the lines of _Don’t you dare say whatever’s on your mind right now_ , he finished with a dramatic gesture, “ _sweep the floor_ with your enemies.”

A momentary silence followed, broken only when Marica was the first of them to speak up. “I think,” she said, her hands over her face and mild exasperation in her tone, “for the sake of the Company’s sanity, that broom should never, ever be wielded by you.”

“I’m taking that from you.” Liu plucked the broom from Sieg’s hands. “How about we give this to Sisuca? She spent five days polishing that tablet. Might as well get something out of it.” He turned it over thoughtfully, considering all the little corners in the castle that were dusty and probably needed a good sweeping; as he did so, a blast of magic shot out of the end of the broom and hit the stone wall next to them, fizzling out in a burst of sparkles.

Liu very carefully put the broom back on the table, drew his hands back, and suggested, “So, uh, let’s get this to Sisuca, shall we?”

* * *

Once they figured out how strong the weaponized broom actually was, Sieg decided that they should bring Sisuca along on their latest mission: a trip to Cragbark to officially meet the tribe of the Furious Roar.

“How’s Sisuca ever gonna get better at fightin’ if she doesn’t try her new weapon out?” he pointed out, when Marica groaned and asked him why he wanted to bring _her_ along. “I bet you two would work together really well, too. ’Sides, she can keep Roberto from killin’ me on this trip. I still don’t think he likes me all that much...”

Marica rolled her eyes. “Roberto isn’t going to kill you, don’t be stupid.”

“If he kills you, I’ll come out there and kill him,” Jale added helpfully.

“No one is going to kill anyone on our side.” The look on Liu’s face plainly read _I love you guys, but please **think** before you open your mouths_.

Raising an eyebrow, Marica muttered something under her breath. Just as Sieg was about to ask for some clarification, Sisuca asked from behind them, “Who’s not going to kill anyone now?” Roberto stood behind her, scowling in a way that implied that unlike Sisuca, he had heard the preceding conversation. All of them jumped in surprise, and Jale wisely decided to shut his mouth.

“N-Nothing, Sisuca! We were just here to wish you guys a safe trip,” Liu covered up.

* * *

Liu’s wish for a safe trip held true for the majority of their journey; the trip to the Marsinah Plains passed uneventfully, for the most part. Sisuca fumbled with her broom at first, feeling vaguely ridiculous, but by the time they made it to the Ch’olui Mountains she wielded it like an old pro.

On their last night in the Ch’olui Mountains, a battle with a Snow Fenrir just before they set up camp took a lot out of the other three members of the party. Since she’d been in the back row by herself, and had managed to avoid the brunt of the attacks, Sisuca used Healing Wave on all of them and then volunteered for the first watch. “Get some sleep!” she exclaimed, shooing Sieg, Marica, and Roberto off to their sleeping bags. “Mama will keep a careful eye on you all! Don’t you worry!”

About an hour into her watch, a rustling noise caught her attention, and she looked up to see Marica wriggling out of her sleeping bag. “Can’t sleep?”

“Not really,” Marica replied, rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand. She took a seat across the fire from Sisuca. In the background, Sisuca could faintly hear Sieg snoring. “I wanted to talk to you, though.”

“What is it?”

“Ever since you joined the Company, you keep treating us like we’re still ten years old.” Marica poked at the fire with a stick, not looking Sisuca in the eye. The fire crackled for a minute or two before she continued. “We’re not kids anymore. We can take care of ourselves.”

“I know that,” Sisuca responded. “It’s just—I still worry about all of you.”

“Look, it’s okay.” Marica looked up and shot her sister a smile. “You’ve seen Sieg and me in battles for the past week and a half, so you know we can handle ourselves. And you saw Jale in action against Selen the last time they fought, right? He’s gotten so much stronger since all of this began. We all have, even Liu. And I know you’re always gonna worry about us, because you’re my big sister and their ‘mother’”—here she added quotation marks in the air with her fingers, in the way Sieg always did—“but, you know, I’m just saying. Even when you and Dirk aren’t around to take care of us, we’re here for each other.” She faltered slightly at the end, realizing that Dirk hadn’t been around to take care of them for seasons, and might not ever be around to take care of them again.

A few moments of silence stretched out between them, punctuated only when Sieg let out a loud snore and rolled over. “You know,” Sisuca said finally, “I can’t speak for Dirk, and I don’t know why he’s doing what he’s doing. But let me tell you, I’m so proud of how far you four have come.”

Marica looked surprised for a moment, but then broke into a wide grin. “Heh. Thanks, sis.”

“Now go get some sleep! How are we going to make a good impression on the Furious Roar if you fall asleep five minutes after we meet them?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Marica rolled her eyes and stood up, a smile still lingering at the corner of her mouth. “Good night, Sisuca.”

* * *

The next day, they finally made it to the western edge of the Marsinah Plains. Sieg let out a whoop and raced forward into the plains, with Roberto hot on his heels yelling for him to  _slow down and wait for the rest of us, you idiot_ .

As the two of them ran forward into the plains and Marica and Sisuca followed close behind, a rumbling sound caused all four of them to come to a stop and look around, confused. The sound was soon followed up by two enormous Pekklars, enraged and all too ready to battle.

Taking down the first Pekklar was difficult enough; Sisuca had to cast a healing spell or give someone medicine almost every other turn. About ten minutes into the fight, on the rare turn where everyone was still relatively healthy, Sisuca raised her broom, cast Flame Explosion, and the first Pekklar went down. Sieg whooped and raced forward to slash at the second Pekklar.

Just before the last monster charged, Sisuca used the last of her magic to cast a Healing Wave spell, dragging Sieg back from the brink of unconsciousness. He threw a quick “Thanks!” over his shoulder as he charged forward, with Roberto and Marica close on his heels. All three of them struck at the monster, and with a mighty roar, it toppled onto its side and let out its last breath.

“Whew. Thanks for the save back there, Sisuca,” Sieg grinned.

“No problem! Mama is always here for you.” At that, Sieg rolled his eyes and was about to say something when another loud rumbling echoed from over the horizon, making all of them jump to attention.

“Can we even make it through another battle?” Roberto blurted out, panic seeping into his voice.

Luckily for all of them, that was when the Furious Roar showed up.

* * *

Their meeting and dinner with the Furious Roar flew by in a blur of food and chatter—Sisuca committed every detail to memory to write in her diary later. Charismatic as always, Sieg managed to establish friendships with the Furious Roar right off the bat, and quickly endeared himself to King Diulf and his bodyguards. However, despite Sieg’s best attempts to convince them otherwise, the Furious Roar refused to team up with their company, citing their belief that their ancestors would stand with them.

As they settled into their room in the Cragbark inn, Sisuca thought to herself that things really could have gone better, but at least Diulf hadn’t decided to join up with the Order. Things could have been worse, she decided, and pulling the blankets up over herself, she drifted off to sleep.

In the middle of the night, Marica shook her awake, whispering, “Roberto and Sieg heard something outside, so we should get out there too.”

They arrived outside just as Sieg and Roberto were about to start a fight with two of the Order archivists; Marica ran forward to join them in the front row, Sisuca settled herself in the back row, and they sprang into action. The battle, while difficult, was a walk in the park compared to what happened afterward: Dirk showed up and managed to convince the Furious Roar that Sieg and the others were conspiring against them. Roberto railed against Dirk’s claims, but the rest of them weren’t much use; Marica and Sisuca were too shocked by Dirk’s sudden reappearance to speak up in their defense, and Sieg completely froze up, and was only able to choke out, “Dirk… is not my enemy.” Although it was true, this really didn’t help their case at all, and they were unceremoniously booted out of Cragbark.

After they managed to make camp at the edge of the Marsinah Plains, Roberto cornered Sieg. “What was that all about?” Sisuca overheard him demanding as she and Marica set up the fire. “None of you said anything!”

“That guy was Dirk. He’s like an older brother to me and Liu and Jale and Marica. I was an orphan, and he took me under his wing… He taught me all sorts of stuff,” Sieg explained. Roberto looked taken aback. Their voices lowered, and their conversation became inaudible. Sisuca supposed Roberto deserved an explanation—as the only person in their party who wasn’t from Citro, he wouldn’t have known anything about Dirk.

Once they finished setting up camp, Sisuca volunteered for the first watch—it was already one in the morning, and all of them were tired from fighting off the Order in the middle of the night. Marica nestled into her sleeping bag and was asleep in moments; Roberto tossed and turned for a few minutes, but fell asleep shortly afterward.

Sieg lay in his sleeping bag for about ten minutes before he gave up, wriggled out, and came to sit next to Sisuca on a log by the fire. “I keep thinkin’ I should’ve done more,” he sighed. “I should’ve at least said somethin’ so King Diulf didn’t think we were workin’ with him. But it’s true, right…? Dirk isn’t our enemy, is he?”

Sadness hit her like a punch to the gut; if even Sieg was questioning Dirk now, then would they ever be able to get him back? She took a deep breath and tried to muster up some comforting words.

“Aren’t you the one who always says there’s no use worrying over might-have-beens? Look, you did the best any of us could have done,” Sisuca assured him, pulling him into a hug. Sieg grumbled for a moment, but eventually relaxed into the hug. “So next time we see Dirk,” she continued, “maybe he’ll come back to us, and maybe he won’t. But like you always say, Sieg—you’ll never know until you try! And until Dirk comes back to us, you’ll always have Marica and Jale and Liu to watch your back. And me, of course,” she added as an afterthought.

“Heh.” Sieg sniffled a little bit, and Sisuca tactfully pretended she hadn’t heard anything. “Ya know, that really helped. Thanks, Sisuca.” His smile, while a little bit watery, was real, and it made Sisuca feel a bit better about the whole situation. Maybe there was hope for Dirk, after all.

“Of course!” she beamed. “Mama believes in you!”

* * *

Letting go of her children was difficult, and Sisuca was never going to deny that. But it got easier over time; her babies were growing up, and they were so much stronger than they had been when this whole thing began. Seeing them in action against all the dangers out there, terrifying as it had been, showed her that they could take care of themselves just fine—and when they really needed her help, she’d always be there.

She would be the first to admit that she hadn’t expected to be doing this when Marica and Sieg and Jale and Liu were fifteen. She had expected to teach her sister how to use a bow, and pass on all the songs that her mother and passing Wanderers had taught her as a child, and maybe dole out some relationship advice. And she _had_ ended up doing that—the only thing was that those duties had taken a backseat to learning magic and healing and fending off Order troops what seemed like every other day.

So maybe her neighbors’ children had decided to lead normal lives. Maybe they weren’t running all over the continent, assembling armies that grew larger by the day, and challenging the Order of the One True Way. Maybe they had gotten married instead, or played in the town square where her babies had played so long ago, or got into mischief in the way only Citro Village kids could.

But her kids were fighting to make sure that her neighbors’ children could live those peaceful, normal lives.

And she was so, so proud of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun facts that didn't make it into this story:  
> In her diary in the artbook, Sisuca even refers to herself in her diary entries as Mom.  
> Sieg calls Sisuca "Sisu-nee" in the Japanese dub, but I guess "Big Sis Sisu" was a little too weird for the English dubbers to deal with.
> 
> And that's a wrap! I hope you enjoyed your gift, Suzume!


End file.
